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Peace Without Victory—in Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

That European and American philosophy at the opening of the twentieth century should have been sharply controversial was not an accident of politics, any more than it was accidental that persecutions and inquisitions should have attended the history of Christianity. The jealous God of Christianity was by definition an only god whose claims implies the rejection or subordination of every other god. Those who were not exclusively with him were counted against him. “ Christian “ and “ anti-Christian “ constituted a complete disjunction. Similarly, the effect of the philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was to define sharp and conflicting antitheses. Its gods were jealous gods. Differences were irreconcilable oppositions, which could be overcome only through the conquest of one by another, or through their joint abdication in favour of a third party. But there are many signs of a changed temper of mind. The most recent philosophy seeks to escape such hostilities by avoiding the initial antitheses, or by bringing to light original communities and identities which have been lost sight of in the excessive sharpening of distinctions.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1928

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References

1 Speaking, in 1879, of the duality of mind and matter, William James wrote: “ Phenomenally incommensurable, the attempt to reduce them to unity by calling them two ‘ aspects ‘ is vain so long as it is not pointed out who is there adspicere; and the MachIspruch that they are expressions of one underlying Reality has no rationalizing function so long as that Reality is confessedly unknowable.”Mind, vol. iv, p. 336.Google Scholar